


Storytelling

by BlackBeeNo3569



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBeeNo3569/pseuds/BlackBeeNo3569
Summary: Short story in addition to The Apiarist comic. Soft  moment that Pitch and Hazel share together.
Relationships: Pitch Black / OC
Kudos: 1





	Storytelling

When Pitch finally returned back to the Lair, it was just past the dawn. While the sun was raising up on the sky, it’s light was weak, hidden behind the heavy mass of clouds. He decided to walk a bit through the forest to clear his head, it had been a long winter night. The war was too long, too tiring by that time and the fears of people lost a lot of their initially fresh, sharp taste. Taming the wild fear wasn’t exactly a pleasant work either. He walked through the crispy snow, the night was once again clenched within the severe freeze. As the nights tended to be those days. The forest was filled with long shadows, gloomy morning for another cold, grey day.

Descending to the underground he noticed distant frolicking reflections of flames. ‘She has to be back home’, he thought. Surely it was the fire in the fireplace, sending warm glints over the high walls of the hall.

The hall was actually a rather small place, at least when compared with other spaces in the Lair. There wasn’t much to it except for the remarkable fireplace – wide and impossibly high open chimney, an absolutely straight channel for the fire. Of course the magic was involved – that way the open fireplace never needed much of wood, neither it let the smoke into the hall. In the old days it was a place for many celebrations, feasts or just talks by the fire. Then for a long time, Pitch didn’t use it much. But now, with Hazel around, it turned out to be the natural place of their meeting again when they came back home or for their talks. The warm darkness of the hall with it’s crimson gleams seemed to elevate even Hazel’s grief. Not that they would talk about it – but here, by the fire, it was slightly easier to be silent about it.

He found her there, sitting on the old carpet with worn pattern, back resting against the armchair. Facing the mild fire, she opened her eyes when he came closer. He tried to guess whether she was crying again or not.

‘You came home quite late, today,’ she said quietly.

Home, again. Was he ever thinking and talking that much about the Lair as home before? And yes, she had cried. He could tell by the sadness lingering in her voice.

‘I didn’t go through the shadows, but rather took a walk through the wood,’ he answered her and sat down next to her. He felt like that answer meant pretty much nothing, so he added: ‘It was a busy night. I wanted to clear my thoughts a bit.’

She smiled and nodded: ‘And did it work?’

He scoffed a little at the question. ‘We’ve been blessed with an extraordinarily bleak winter. Morning just fitting the night.’

‘If you didn’t like the greyish freeze the Winter King sent upon us, you should at least rest here,’ she said with a mild smile, but Pitch could hear and see that the sadness still sat in her throat and eyes. There was no way how to really help her, except for dispelling it away for here and now. He caught her by surprise when he laid his head on her lap and touched her cheek.

‘You might be right, I need to rest a bit. But you look like you could use a little distraction, too,’ he said with smile. And it worked, Hazel looked down at him with amusement in her look and told him: ‘Well, if that’s so, you know what I like the best to clear my mind.’

And indeed, he knew. She loved his stories, tales from the old times and places, whether they were about spirits or humans – but usually they were about both. So he started to tell some ancient story, a myth or a legend if someone else told it, but simply true memories in his case. Hazel rested her head against the armchair and closed her eyes, letting her mind to slip into the old times in the rhythm of Pitch’s words, gently stroking his hair with her hand.

He could see how much calmer her face became. And what started as a bit of a joke, slowly got into a much quieter moment. When he hid her other hand in his own, it felt so natural, that neither one of them knew if it was intentional or not.

The story kept going, the flames were heating the hall and Hazel felt the weight of his head, neck and shoulders against her legs. She already got to know the permanent tense that his body was usually in. She couldn’t but notice how that familiar feeling is slowly fading away, while he rests on her lap. Only then she realized that she is not the only broken one in the Lair. They’ve barely talked about it again, but now she fully understood that Pitch must be living with a very similar pain of loss, as she is. But for much longer time. Somehow she was moved by the fact that at least now he could feel a bit of relief. Just as she was feeling.

Slowly the sweet sleepiness was creeping into his mind and body and it was too powerful to fight it. Pitch found it very difficult to continue the story, with the warmth of the fire and of her body, with one of her hand in his hair and the second safely hidden in his palm. Pleasant numbness was closing his eyes and stealing the words from him. When he stopped talking, it took Hazel few moments to notice it. She got sleepy as well. She smiled when she saw that he was fast asleep. She never saw him sleeping, except for that one night under the oaks. She continued stroking his hair, as she didn’t want to wake him up – only until the her thoughts turned into dreams, too.


End file.
